Digital BW, The Print

There is an extensive discussion on coating in the archives on this
list...dating back more than a year.  Search under coating and also
hyrocote.  Paul Roark, Martin Wesley, Mark Tucker and I (Robert Morrison)
have contributed a good bit of information.  There is also a lot of info on
the Yahoo wide format list from Mark Tucker.

In short you can increase pigment on matte paper dmax by about 0.4 to 0.6
units by coating...equaling or exceeding the blacks of an air-dried silver
print.  The greatest difficulty is getting an even coat.  Brushes will not
get you there because of brush marks and rollers will not work because of
foaming.  For smaller prints (16 x 20 and smaller) you can get good results
with the Mayer Rods that Antonis Ricos mentioned below.  You need to set up
a coating station which includes a 1/2 in. thick piece of glass and need to
get a #30 Mayer rod.  For coating prints larger than 24" you will need to
use a HVLP sprayer which involves constructing a spray booth to use
it...much bigger project (once again see Mark Tucker's posts on the
wideformat yahoo list). Previous posts contain instructions for using it.
The best commercially available coating for this purpose is Hydrocote
polyshield clear superpoly <www.hydrocote.com> , which is a water-based
aliphatic polyurethane made for preserving wood.  It is "non-yellowing" and
relatively non-toxic, but ventilation and gloves are a good idea.  A single
#30 Mayer Rod coat of Hydrocote (takes less than 1 minute for an
8x10...start to finish) will product better results than you are currently
getting.

As you will see from my older posts and some of the information in the files
section on this list, many of us have experimented with the Golden products.
I have used exactly what you are using and there are much better solutions.
In addition I made my own formula with the intent of commercializing...but
the economics are just not feasible given the existence of products like
Hydrocote.

I've spent a lot of time on this...I've also spent a huge amount of time
testing the possibilities of using the new "photo" inks like the
Ultrachromes (or MIS's new Ultraquad inks) on RC papers to get similar
effects.  The prints you can get from the 2200 using a driver like Ink Jet
Control or Imageprint may make coating unnecessary.  Personally, I still
like the coated prints because of a complete absence of bronzing...which
tends to be a problem with the RC papers.  In the end the RC papers will
always have some glare problem because there is no, or very little ink laid
down in highlights.  We may be able avoid both by spraying these papers with
a light coat of Krylon Kamvar varnish or the like.  This workflow may be
easier.

Another interesting possiblity are the emergence of fiber-based gloss inkjet
papers...which will begin to enter the market at the end of the summer.

Robert



in On 5/31/03 6:10 PM, "Antonis Ricos" <antonisphoto@...> wrote:

> Daniel,
> 
> try rods such as...
> http://www.buschmancorp.com/wirewound.asp.
> http://www.rdspecialties.com/labs.htm
> http://www.eepjon.com/Rods.htm
> 
> Ask Robert Morrison (on this list) for more details.
> 
> 
> Also look at:
> http://www.ijsupplies.com/ij-clear-coatings.html
> 
> Good luck going after the holy grail!
> 
> 
> Antonis. 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel Staver"
> <daniel@p...> wrote:
>> I just made my first attempt at coating a print using the following
>> procedure:
>> 
>> - 2 layers of Golden Soft Gel (Gloss) brushed on with one hour drying
>> time between the two coats.
>> 
>> - 2 layers of Golden Polymer Varnish with UVLS (Gloss) also brushed on
>> with one hour drying time between coats.
>> 
>> My first impression is that this looks really beautiful. Sure I got
>> visible brush streaks from the first coat, and lots of dust on the
>> print, but the blacks are much, much better, and I feel the picture got
>> some extra 'punch' that wasn't there before. It's got the deep blacks of
>> glossy papers with the texture and archivability of fine art matte
>> papers - Seems like a great combination to me.
>> 
>> I measured the uncoated black to 2.54 and coated to 2.85 on EAM. This
>> should only be about 2% difference, but in reality it looks much
>> greater. Holding an uncoated black patch against the coated print makes
>> the patch look very gray, not black.
>> 
>> Next time I'm going to try a roll instead of a brush for the first coat,
>> and do the coating in my bathroom instead of my dusty carpeted room.
>> 
>> This was very encouraging, I'm really looking forward to doing more
>> experiments now!
>> 
>> --
>> Daniel Staver
>> http://daniel.staver.no
> 
> 
> 
> Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, Bookmarks, Polls and other
> resources as they are often being updated. The page is at:
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint
> 
> If you wish to receive no emails or just a daily digest, or you wish to
> unsubscribe, please edit your Membership preferences by visiting this same
> page.
> 
> Please follow these basic guidelines:
> - Include your full name with your message.
> - Include the address of your website, if you have one.
> - As threads develop, trim off excess portions of earlier messages to keep
> them short.
> - As the topic of a thread changes remember to change the subject header.
> - Good manners are required at all time. No personal attacks or flames
> - Complete your Yahoo profile.
> - Before posting a question, search the message archives and the various
> resources on the homepage.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> 
> 
>